Tau

Has a rare level of raw, baffling stupidity that is difficult to put into words.

Searching

Surrenders any visual dynamic to its central conceit of presenting everything on a series of laptop screens, creating something that's a step up from an audiobook, and a step down from a point and click adventure.

What We Do In The Shadows

A superb blend of vampire mythologies of old and uncomfortable social awkwardnesses of now.

BlacKkKlansman

A Searing indictment on race relations in 1970s America and a humbling reminder that despite our collective best efforts, things still aren't much different today.

Climax

(Frightfest Day 5)
Horrifically disturbing, totally mental, head shattering sensory overload shot through with an ever present kick drum. Fucking awesome.

The Golem

(Frightfest Day 5)
A passable clay boy goes mental story.

The Dark

(Frightfest Day 5)
Reverse monster movie where the antagonist slowly becomes human. Manages to do so without suffocating levels of sentimentality too, which is quite a feat.

The Field Guide To Evil

(Frightfest Day 5)
Like most horror anthologies some stories could do with being longer, some could do with being shorter, some could do with being better and there’s roughly two too many. Strickland’s is the best.

Open 24 Hours

(Frightfest Day 5)
Presents itself as much more intelligent than this kind of thing usually is and for first two acts I was totally buying it until I realised that for every step toward smart, the movie was also taking two steps towards dumb.

Tigers Are Not Afraid [Veulven]

(Frightfest Day 4)
Absolutely amazing dark fairytale about lost kids in the slums of drug-war torn Mexico. Think City Of God directed by Terry Gilliam and you're somewhere close. Yes, that good.

Terrified [Aterrados]

(Frightfest Day 4)
Designed with the specific intention of shitting you up terribly. Does a fucking good job of it too.

He's Out There

(Frightfest Day 4)
Questions left unanswered by the end of this movie;
‘Who is he?’, ‘Why is he doing this?’, ‘Where does he find the time/resources  to pull some of this shit off?’,  ‘Does he ever sleep?’, ‘No, seriously, why the fuck is he doing this?’
Questions answered by this movie;
‘Where is he?’

The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then Bigfoot

(Frightfest Day 4)
An intrusive score and a lot of heavy pausing from the actors combine to force poignancy in order to convince you, the viewer, that this is a ‘proper’ movie and therefore good. It is neither of these things.

Lifechanger

(Frightfest Day 4)
About a shapeshifter that doesn’t seem to be aware of the massive potential presented by such abilities and instead uses his powers to mope over some woman he met a couple of years back.

Fright Fest

(Frightfest Day 3)
Feels a bit all over the shop. Actually a lot all over the shop.

Upgrade

(Frightfest Day 3)
An excellent bit of grimy future, evocative of modern day Carpenter in its invention.

F.U.B.A.R.

(Frightfest Day 3)
A stag do gone wrong movie boosted by chirps of mirth, a couple of unexpected plot developments and an on form Mr. Lizard.

Chuck Steel: Night Of The Trampires

(Frightfest Day 3)
Staggering stop motion, plenty of belly laughs and huge amounts of plasticine violence. An absolutely remarkable film.

Heretiks

(Frightfest Day 3)
Kept dozing off through this one and if hot nuns killing each other can’t keep my eyes open then somebody’s not doing their job right.

The Book Of Monsters

(Frightfest Day 3)
I really wanted to like this, some great monster design and a witty script lean in its favour, but shoddy effects and some awful stilted performances counted against it. So no.

Boar

(Frightfest Day 2)
Poar.

Incident In A Ghostland

(Frightfest Day 2)
Laugier's film making continues to astound with his displays of visceral ferocity and a strong control over perceptions. And Lovecraft was in it, so obviously ace.

One Cut Of The Dead [Kameru o tomeru na!]

(Frightfest Day 2)
Begins with a 37 minute shot, and then goes on to do something very clever with it for the rest of the movie. I really did not expect to be laughing as hard as I was. Superb.

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich

(Frightfest Day 2)
Everybody involved appears to have had so much fun inventing crazed, hideous mutilations to be carried out at the hands of Puppets that they’ve forgotten that human bodies just don’t do that, particularly when at the hands of puppets.

A Bluebird In My Heart

(Frightfest Day 2)
A man with a violent past tries to start a new life as a dishwasher. If after reading that sentence you’re genuinely unsure whether that violence in his past will catch up with him then this may be a film for you.

Seeds

(Frightfest Day 2)
I think I may have just been terribly offended by a clumsy tale of pedophilia.

Mega Time Squad

(Frightfest Day 1)
Superb light caper about growing nuts, travelling through time and calling each other 'cunt'.

Summer Of 84

(Frightfest Day 1)
Tonally falters between madcap and deadly serious without hitting either, resulting in a bland smudge of a movie that constantly yells clunky 80s references just in case the title hasn't hammered the point home.

The Ranger

(Frightfest Day 1)
Struggled with character development and so I struggled to give a shit.

Puppet Master: The Legacy

Selected edited "highlights" from the last seven movies carefully woven in to a new story about a woman searching for selected edited "highlights" from the last seven movies. Reminded me that 3 was definitely the best and made me a little bit sad every time one of the other six appeared.

Retro Puppet Master

Slivers of what could have been a good story exploring the origin of the titular Puppet Master and a whole new band of prototype puppets, ruined by cheap juddering puppet effects that still out act the human actors who appear to have all been told to destroy any accent of their choosing, some more than one and then preferably at the same time.

Suspicious Death Of A Minor [Morte sospetta di una minorenne/Too Young To Die]

A misguided tangle of Giallo, grim police thriller and light screwball comedy. Confusing on many levels.

Curse Of The Puppet Master

Money had clearly run out by this point, a remarkably amateurish effort arranged around insert shots of the puppets stolen from all the other movies. The upside of this is the frequent belches of hilarity found when mid scene everything will cut to a puppet skulking about in 1940s nazi Germany, the downside is that it's fucking shit.

Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter

Filmed back to back with part 4 and quite clearly originally intended as one movie, so a twenty minute montage of shit from the previous movie followed by an additional hour of shit that continues directly on from it. And most disappointing of all, no new puppet.

Puppet Master 4

Comedically poor tat chronicling the upset of a grand demon, from whom puppet master Toulon orginally stole the secret of giving life to the inanimate, and a bunch of scientists who are trying to embed artificial intelligence in robots but instead make friends with the usual homicidal puppets plus one extra that so far had been kept boxed away.

Puppet Master III: Toulon's Revenge

A much better entry that takes the tale back to the puppeteers time in nazi Germany as he uses the puppets to extract revenge against nazis that murdered his wife. I am aware that this feels like a much, much better entry than it probably is because I watched it directly after part 2 and even the shit I took after part 2 was golden in comparison.

Puppet Master II

Full of acting so shit that every time a puppet killed somebody you'd cheer because the film just got easier to get through.

Puppetmaster

Four living psychics and a dead one argue over who gets to know a long dead puppeteer's secret to giving inanimate objects life, something he already did to a bunch puppets who kill everybody.

Ant-Man And The Wasp

A much clumsier effort than its predecessor. There's still plenty of fun to be had and there's still plenty of cool splashed about but it's all awkwardly stitched together using a lot of bits that probably needed a bit more thought before being committed to film.

Tag [Riaru onigokko]

I'm not even going to dare attempt to tell you what the fuck this madness is all about, there's symbolism and analogies flying all over the shop alongside an extraordinary amount of Japanese schoolgirls meeting hideous fates. I enjoyed it immensely.

Caltiki, The Immortal Monster [Caltiki il mostro immortale]

Scientists awaken a pile of cow entrails that emit synth noises and absorbs human flesh whilst investigating an ancient mayan ruin. Should be tawdry B movie nonsense but Bava's ingenuity makes it shine, despite the fact that the ending is quite clearly a bunch of toy tanks burning a heap of bovine guts.

The Night Eats The World [La nuit a dévoré le monde]

A shift of focus from the usual zombie apocalypse carnage to an existential study of a lone survivor who decides to just sit it out. It turns out that surviving is boring, needs more carnage.